[calsify] Re: JSContact: supporting multiple names?

[Mauro De Gennaro <[e-mail]>]

Hi Robert,

I the vCardConvertedProps proposal, it's a step in the right direction. I’ve been exploring a slightly different approach that might help address some of the representation mismatches between vCard <-> JSContact and iCal <-> JSCalendar, while also streamlining the data format.
The idea is: since we already evaluate JSON Pointers to handle localizations, why not extend this concept by using patch objects to represent all vCard/iCal parameters that don’t have a natural place in JSContact or JSCalendar? This would allow us to keep the core format clean and consistent by centralizing all those extra parameters in one place.

Here's an example vCard:

BEGIN:VCARD
VERSION:4.0
FN;ALTID=9;X-CUSTOM=abc:Gabriel García Márquez
TITLE;ALTID=3;LANGUAGE=EN:novelist
TITLE;ALTID=1;X-PROP=xyz;LANGUAGE=es:escritor
TITLE;ALTID=2;X-PROP=tyu;LANGUAGE=es:novelista
EMAIL;X-FOO=Bar:[e-mail]
item1.X-FOO;X-BAR=Hello:World!
END:VCARD

Could be represented in JSContact like this:


{
  "name": {
    "full": "Gabriel García Márquez"
  },
  "titles": {
    "t1": {
      "kind": "title",
      "name": "novelist"
    }
  },
  "emails": {
    "email1": {
      "address": "[e-mail]"
    }
  },
  "localizations": {
    "es": {
      "titles/t1/name": "escritor"
    }
  },
  "vCardParams": {
    "name/full": {
      "ALTID": "9",
      "X-CUSTOM": "abc"
    },
    "name/title/t1": {
      "ALTID": "3"
    },
    "localizations/es/names/title/t1": {
      "ALTID": "1",
      "X-PROP": "xyz"
    },
    "emails/email1": {
      "x-foo": "Bar"
    }
  },
  "vCardProps": [
    [
      "TITLE",
      {
        "ALTID": "2",
        "LANGUAGE": "ES",
        "X-PROP": "tyu"
      },
      "novelista"
    ],
    [
      "x-foo",
      {
        "x-bar": "Hello",
        "group": "item1"
      },
      "unknown",
      "World!"
    ]
  ]
}

The only slightly awkward case is where we end up patching a localization entry itself (e.g. localizations/es/titles/t1/name). While not ideal, I think this trade-off is worth it given how much cleaner and more structured the rest of the format becomes.


Best,
Mauro


> On 23 Apr 2025, at 18:58, Robert Stepanek <rsto=[e-mail]> wrote:
> 
> Hi Mauro,
> 
> thanks for the clarification.
> 
> On Wed, Apr 23, 2025, at 5:40 PM, Mauro De Gennaro wrote:
>> I went through my notes and the issue I had found with the full name was not about multiple FNs but rather related to parameters in FN fields. This is because JSContact defines the name.full property as a String:
>> [...]
>> So it doesn’t seem possible to represent vCard parameters in the main full name. For example, let’s take the flowing vCard object:
> 
> 
> We might indeed be missing something for preserving such cases during conversion. Mario might chime in and correct me here.
> 
> One option would be to introduce a new conversion-specific JSCalendar property in addition to the ones already defined in RFC 9555. That new property would be defined to achieve what the ICalComponent "convertedProperties" property in jscalendar-icalendar, section 5.1.1 does for iCalendar conversion:
> 
> Here is draft off the top of my head:
> 
> vCardConvertedProps: String[VCardConvertedProperty]
> This contains conversion-related information about the vCard properties that got partially or fully converted to a JSContact object. Each key defines the path to a property of the JSContact object on which the "vCardConvertedProps" property is set on. The value for each key contains information about the vCard property which converted to the  property located at that key.
> 
> The VCardConvertedProperty object has the following properties:
> 
> - name (mandatory): String. the name of the vCard property
> - params: String[String] (optional) This contains parameters of the vCard property. The value MUST comply with vCard parameters formatted in jCard.
> - valueType: String (optional) This is the name of the vCard property value type in lowercase.
> 
>> "name": {
>> "full": “ {
>>     value: "Wile E. Coyote”.
>>     "vCardParams": {
>> “ALT-ID": “2”,
>> “X-CUSTOM”: “abc”
>> }
>>   }
>> }
> 
> With the "vCardConvertedProperties" this might look like:
> 
> "name": {
> "full": "Wile E. Coyote",
> "vCardConvertedProps": {
> "full": {
> "name": "fn",
> "params": {
> "alt-id": "2",
> "x-custom": "abc"
> }
> }
> }
> }
> 
> which would have the benefit of also allowing to preserve parameters for other properties that got converted to the name property.
> 
> Regards,
> Robert
> _______________________________________________
> calsify mailing list -- [e-mail]
> To unsubscribe send an email to [e-mail]